Wednesday, 31 August 2011

A remarkable four of the seven categories in this year's Homo Hero awards have bi nominees!

Have you voted yet?
I'm delighted to be on one of the shortlists - other prominent bi activists are on two of the others, while community press magazine BCN is nominated in another category.

This is an amazing level of bi representation - our community volunteers getting shortlisted alongside people like the director of Manchester Pride or Sir Ian McKellen is amazing in itself.

It's a long shot, but we might win one or another category - there's no judging panel, it's all about the votes cast by the public. So please - get over to the Homo Hero site, show your support for the work done by the nominees and many other people in building us a bi community. And stay tuned for news from the awards 'do' on 22nd September (the day before Bi Visibility Day!)

Most years Manchester Pride seems to get a little better than the one before (2010 was an exception where they regressed to the 90s and went all biphobic on us) and this time around it was lovely, if chilly and wet. There was a new all-time-high in the number of stalls with bi material on them: five! BiPhoria (naturally), Albert Kennedy Trust, LGBT Youth NW, Unison and the Liberal Democrats.

Lots of interest in the stuff BiPhoria does and in other bi projects like BCN, a fistful of people from the Leicester / Nottingham area who got excited when we told them about BiCon this coming weekend, and a whole heap of new signups for the info and events email list. Oh, and the use of "bi-furious" as a neologism continues to be a winner at getting people to come over and ask the kind of questions that lead to education.

Also, the bi pride colours bunting looked fabulous.

Regrets: being so worn out from being bouncy at people all day that I couldn't face staying around for the evening and so missed things like the Sugababes; though unlike my last Manc Pride weekend, there wasn't anything of the "oooh" oomph of the Human League to make me fight to overcome the floomp.

Monday, 1 August 2011

The UK's leading "lesbian, gay and bisexual" (according to its Christmas cards) charity Stonewall has published its response to the government consultation on reforms to marriage and civil partnership legislation. It seems that bisexuals have dropped off the Stonewall radar once again.

Stonewall have published their draft submission to the Coalition Government's review of the restrictions on marriage and civil partnership. The submission form first asks for comments about marriage reform to open it up to same-sex couples, and then goes on to the subject of civil partnerships and whether those should be open to mixed-sex couples. In the UK at present civil partnerships are only open to same-sex couples, and marriage only open to mixed-sex couples.

Stonewall's submission begins:

Stonewall seeks to secure marriage for gay people as a civil vehicle on the same basis as heterosexual marriage, available in a registry office but without a mandate on religious organisations to celebrate it. We seek to retain civil partnerships for lesbian and gay people recognising their special and unique status.

And it carries on in that vein. Indeed, after talking only and quite explicitly about lesbians and gay men over marriage reform, the Stonewall submission then responds to a question on Civil Partnership by declaring that as this only affects heterosexual people, it's a matter for them of which Stonewall therefore has no opinion, thus:

This is a matter for heterosexual people and Stonewall would recommend consulting with them and stakeholder organisations representing them.

And, er, that's that.

Newsflash, Stonewall: bisexual people get married. Bisexual people get civil partnerships. Some of the bis who do the one would like to do the other, in either direction, but the law won't let them.

A charity claiming to give voice to lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, really ought to be listening to and giving voice to those bisexual people too - even when it does make the answer on a form a little more complicated.

Come on. A campaigning group that was working for lesbian, gay, and bisexual rights, would be able to remember bisexuals existed all the time rather than just now and then.

And the most frustrating thing is, in discussing the marriage / civil partnership divide that currently exists, bisexuals are a brilliant case to cite for what's so broken. Ten years ago, bisexual people found their relationships were treated differently in law based on the genders of themselves and their partners: today, after so much equality campaigning and the introduction of civil partnerships, that situation is exactly the same.

Bi people get into relationships with lesbians, gays, straight people and other bis. Gay and lesbian people get into relationships with bis. We are your queer family. And LGB equality is only worthy of the name if we break down the barriers around civil partnerships as well as marriage: campaigning and lobbying for anything less puts the lie to a claim to be campaigning for equality for lesbians, gays and bisexuals.

Here in Greater Manchester we're one of the six English subregions electing new supermayors, alongside places like Liverpool City Region...

Jen

I'm a bi activist in the UK - editor at Bi Community News, and behind projects like Bi Bloggers (which brings together people writing about bi life in the UK) and BiPhoria, the UK's longest-running bi group.

I led the teams running the UK BiCon in 2004 and the International BiCon in 2000, and more recently initiated The Bisexuality Report (pub. Open University 2012) and the Bisexuality Research Guidelines (pub. BCN & BiUK 2012).

The Bisexuality Report was the natural progression from the Bi Life report in 2003. You can grab that one off the BiPhoria website.